After 30 Days

Nineteen - Day 40*

The new dawn had brought with it one of the highest highs I could ever remember experiencing. If it wasn't for our need to stay as quiet as possible, one close encounter with zombies was already too many for this outing, I probably would have been humming to myself happily as we walked along the narrow road. As it was, I couldn't resist occasionally swinging our joined hands  a little harder than necessary, just because I could.

I felt like a kid in an ice cream store. The sun was up, we were on the move again, and nobody was dead. Then there was the kiss that was the cherry on top of my sundae. I shot a sideways glance at him, and found those incredible eyes already watching me.

I looked away, blushing. I felt like some sort of giggling twelve year old for the reaction, but even that was welcomed. I was far too happy to let even my own weird awkwardness spoil the mood.

The morning sun was fully up in the sky when the sound of a distant engine reached us. The sound had become so foreign in the silence of the new world that it stood out. On an unspoken agreement, we dashed off of the road and into the cover of the trees.

The vehicle was moving fast. I'd barely had time to pull Rex behind a thorn bush before it was there. Peering through the leaves of the bush, which I only just then realized had started to turn a pretty shade of red at the tips, I watched a familiar suv speed past on the road.

I tripped over the dog in my rush to get back to the road. Shawn beat me back out there, and by the time I stumbled from the weeds, he was waving his arms over his head in an attempt to flag down the suv.

Brake lights lit up and the tires of the vehicle slid a little in all of the loose gravel that littered the road.

I beamed a smile at Shawn, "At least we won't have to walk the rest of the way back." Adjusting the strap of my backpack, I started walking toward the suv.

They had made it far enough up the road that they would have disappeared around a bend in a few more seconds. The suv began slowly backing toward us. I walked a little faster, eager to get off of tired feet and into the relative comfort of the vehicle. They were still rolling backward slowly when a door flung open and Maya jumped out.

"There you are! Both of you!" She jogged right up to me and pulled me into a hug.

Awkwardly patting her back, I let her hug me. It was the first time she'd shown so much emotion for anyone other than her husband, at least since Carrie had died. It caught me off guard. The hug didn't last long, though, she let me go to look Shawn up and down with a confused twist to her mouth.

"I mean, I'm glad to see both of you, but they said you had been bitten."

Bill, Maggie, and Charlie had also climbed from the now stopped suv. The four of them formed a loose semi circle around Shawn and I. They all wore similar expressions of confusion.

"They lied, didn't they? I knew we couldn't trust those people," Charlie ground the words out. Her expression was so sour that I half expected her to spit in disgust.

"No, no lie." Shawn pushed his sleeve up high enough to show the bandage on his arm, "I really did get bit."

The bandage had a spot of rusty red where the wound had continued to bleed for a while. All eyes were drawn to it. There was an uncomfortable silence as everyone looked awkwardly between the wound and each other. I crossed my arms.

Maggie finally spoke, "And you feel ok? No fever?"

"He's fine," I snapped.

She looked at me sharply before returning her gaze to Shawn.

A little more tactful than me, as usual, he kept his voice even. "Nothing. I don't know, I think Bri might have saved my life. She was the one who thought to clean it right away. I really can't explain it any other way."

Maggie stepped closer and reached up to feel his forehead. She dropped her hand and stepped back, "That's... um, wow. I don't know what to say except I'm so glad." She smiled for the first time. "That's amazing. You really don't feel anything?"

"Well, my arm hurts, but no. I don't feel sick at all."

I cut in, "We need to get him back to Alex. I'd feel better if the bite was cleaned again." I didn't add that I was concerned about infection. A zombie's mouth was a filthy place, and the wound hadn't been treated since just after the bite. That was not the first time that he'd mentioned that arm hurting, and he wasn't usually a complainer.

"Yeah, yeah, let's go."

Maggie beamed a smile at us and waved in the direction of the suv. Bill was closest to the back, and he opened the hatch with a smile of his own. He looked over his shoulder as he started to fold his large frame into the back, "You two look beat. Take the seat." Rex jumped enthusiastically past him into the back, nearly knocking the big man over. Maya giggled lightly as she followed her husband into the vehicle. Both people were still smiling when Charlie shut the hatch on them.

Charlie looked Shawn over for a brief second, before shaking her head and striding to the front of the suv as quickly as her limp would allow. She climbed into the passenger side without looking back. I mentally shrugged and started for the open door and the sweet relief of a padded seat. I couldn't explain what had happened any better than the rest of them. And I wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth. We were all ok, and that was good enough for me.

I really couldn't blame any of my friends for odd reactions, as much as I just wanted to pretend that something bad hadn't nearly happened. We had all been through enough together by then to know that bad things happened to good people. None of us had ever seen a person survive being infected before.

A loud sigh escaped me when I sat down. It was heaven. I didn't even mind that Rex swung his head over the back of the seat and rested his panting jaws directly next to my ear. Puffs of hot dog breath made my hair tickle my neck, but I was suddenly too tired to push the dog away. Sinking further into the seat, I closed my eyes. The last doors closed as Maggie and Shawn climbed into the suv, and I felt the vehicle make a sharp turn back the way it had come from.

The ride back was quiet, but the curiosity of my friends was tangible in the air. They had questions, but were giving us space. I had no real answers for them, so I kept my eyes closed and pretended to have fallen asleep. Truth be told, I easily could have. The relative safety after the stress of the past day made my exhaustion weigh me down like a ton of bricks.

It seemed to take longer than I remembered before Maggie was pulling to a stop outside of the closed gate at the school. All I wanted was to get inside, track down our nurse to take better care of Shawn's arm, and then find somewhere to sleep for a week. I heard her window roll down and dragged heavy lids open to watch the man at the gate come over.

"We're back," she smiled out the window at him as he approached.

The guy, it was someone that I recognized from the group that had met us outside of the school's front doors that first time, but hadn't been introduced to yet, leaned down to look in the window. "That was fast. We didn't expect you all back for a while yet," he looked around Maggie at Charlie. Looking through the heavily tinted windows of our vehicle was not easy, so he was forced to crane his neck to see the rest of us through the window.

I knew the instant his eyes landed on the one person who he was not expecting to see in the suv. Gate guy nearly bashed his head on the frame of the suv in his surprise and haste to back away from us.

"Oh, no. Sick people aren't allowed inside the gates," his eyes were wide and he shook his head emphatically. "There's kids in here. Anyone who gets bit has to stay outside."